Belgian electricity ‘is green only on paper’

Belgium’s renewable power only rarely comes from environmentally friendly sources, writes Seenews’s Radostina Androva-Andonova. The market share of renewable power in Belgium officially increased from 17% to 54% in the past five years, but customers are often misled when they believe they have signed a green power contract with their supplier. The power they buy is often ‘grey’ electricity produced in environment-friendly nuclear or gas-fired plants, energy specialist Tom De Meester told Het Laatste Nieuws. He pointed out that Belgian suppliers hardly invested in windmills, solar panels or biogas installations but bought green labels from foreign suppliers, the so-called guarantees of origin. The strategy is completely legal, but the practice itself is not quite fair, De Meester said.